Newly missing e-voting chips isn't the only election news to break out of the People's Republic of San Diego County today.

The sunny Southern California enclave, which has succeeded in making an infamous name for itself over the last several years by running some of the most poorly administrated and least transparent elections in the nation, is now suing California's Sec. of State Debra Bowen for her new security mitigation mandate requiring a hand audit of a random 10% sampling of ballots, in elections where the final result margin is less than one-half of 1%.

Deborah Seiler, the former sales rep for voting machine companies Diebold and Sequoia, who was recently named Registrar of Voters for San Diego County, believes Bowen's mandate is onerous in that it would "create extra work and delays" for her office following elections, as the North County Times described it.

Seiler and the county are "alleging that Bowen overstepped her authority in requiring new recount procedures in close races beginning in February," according to the paper, which quotes a spokesperson from Bowen's office defending the legal right of the Secretary to issue such directives as she sees fit.

Bowen's spokesperson, Nicole Winger, confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that the office is confident the Secretary of State may issue such "use procedures," along with voting system certification, which must be followed by counties that choose to use those particular systems. She adds that prior administrations have issued similar use procedures along with system certification, and that their statutory right to do so has held up in past court cases.

According to Winger...

California law is very clear about the Secretary of State's authority --- and duty --- to periodically review voting systems to determined whether they are defective, obsolete, or otherwise unacceptable. Secretary Bowen's top-to-bottom review earlier this year was just that: a comprehensive analysis of the security, accuracy, reliability, and accessibility of California voting systems. Having gained much more insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the voting systems, Secretary Bowen recertified each of them with conditions that shore up security, accuracy, reliability, and accessibility.

Another point of contention for Seiler and San Diego, apparently, is the cost of the auditing procedure. Yet, the money for such audits is to be paid by the voting machine companies themselves, according to Bowen's mandate, due to the unreliability of their voting systems.

The rightwing San Diego Union-Tribune however, in their coverage of the story reports that the voting machine companies --- which have taken California's money, under the clear terms of Bowen's conditional certification requirements --- may be "balking" at paying up for audits, as required.

Instead of suing those voting machine companies, in order to require them to follow the law and pay up, as agreed under the terms of their contracts, Seiler and San Diego are choosing instead to sue Bowen with the complaint that, in addition to causing them more work (poor dears), the hand-count requirement is also too expensive for them.

Bowen's common sense recommendations to improve on the likelihood of accurately tabulated elections were made following her landmark, independent "Top-to-Bottom Review" of e-voting machines in the state. The study, commissioned at the University of California and released in August, found that all such e-voting systems were easily manipulated in seconds' time, could result in the nearly undetectable reversal of election results, and required little more than the aid of common household objects.

San Diego, and their Voting Machine shill turned Registrar of Voters, have yet to make common sense recommendations for anything, as we see it. At least not anything that actually seeks to improve or enhance democracy and transparency for the benefit of the voters who they (supposedly) work for.

It makes perfect sense for a "former sales rep for voting machine companies Diebold and Sequoia" to attack the source of the trouble of their interest. This is the revolving door. This will tie everything up and bog everything down.

This needs to be nipped in the bud fast.

I don't see why the person bringing the suit couldn't be removed for either a.) exquisite incompetence or b.) wearing two hats. If she can't count the vote then what did she take the job for, certainly she was aware years ago of the problems with tabulating votes electronically. If not, then she is totally unqualified for the job.

I am sick of all this deception.

The REAL problem here is that none of these electronic devices that tabulate votes or transfer data can be trusted, ever, they can't be made secure. They can't be validated. And never has there ever been done a simple sanity check of a 100% comparison of paper vs machine during a real election.

A leader would step up to this, the elections and voting technology in this country has become a national emergency that is totally ignored by the corporate owned broadcast media who would rather we watch snow rescues and car chases or pregnant 16 year olds than to really make it clear how screwed America is at this point.

One thing's for sure, it won't stay hidden much longer. Things are going to snap, break and effect everyone at every interest.

Recap on the history of former Diebold sales girl Deb Seiler, now San Diago County registrar of voters.

::::

Two voting groups descended on San Diego's board of supervisors today (5/22/07) to protest the recent appointment of former Diebold saleswoman, Deborah Seiler, as the county's new registrar of voters. They also want Seiler's new assistant registrar, Michael Vu, ousted due to controversies surrounding his tenure as elections director in Ohio. Vu resigned as elections director from Cuyahoga County, Ohio, last year after two of his staff members were convicted of rigging the 2004 presidential recount and after reports revealed numerous problems with the way elections were administered during his time on the job.

Understand that what was done in Cuyahoga County in 2004 was the rigging of votes for the recount.

In upcoming San Diego elections, votes will be cast on paper ballots, either mail-in or at the precincts, and then all taken to the Registrar of Voters where they will be counted on op-scan machines. The results from the op-scan machines, as recorded on their memory cards, will then be fed into the GEMS central tabulator and the results of the election announced.

Some time afterwards there will be a mandatory recount.

Between the time of the election and the time of the recount, the ballots will be in the custody of Seiler and Vu, and Vu has a lot of experience in rigging recounts --- he said that when his elections officials were videotaped rigging the recount in Cuyahoga County, that they had done nothing wrong. But since he has been, according to the Board of Supervisors which hired him for San Diego, "battle tested," nobody is going to get caught on videotape this time. All rigging will be done overnight when only Seiler, Vu, and their trusted staff have access to the ballots.

If, however, Bowen forces them to recount 10% rather than just 1% of the ballots, they'll have a lot more rigging to do. I can understand why they would be resentful.

Here comes the thunder...hope her lawyers find some loophole that allows the SoS to create laws...cause it aint written anywhere.

Do me favor this time Brad and follow the case even if your side (SoS) loses.

The only reason i ever came to your site way back when was to follow the lawsuits against Mikel....and all be damned... I never read about a single one of those outcomes.

{ED NOTE: OMSmedia is Don Haas, the brother to the former San Diego County Registrar of Voters, as horrible or arguably worse than Seiler. Don, I have asked you to identify yourself when posting to items in which you have a conflict of interest for disclosure sake. Please do from here on out, or you will no longer be allowed to post. Consider this fair warning. As to "never read[ing] about a single one of those outcomes", I guess you don't frequent BRAD BLOG frequently enough. The disinfo is not appreciated, and also against our posting rules. Please knock it off. Thanks. --- BF}

This is pretty sad , as a San Diego resident (and a native Californian) , I find myself having to stumble upon this info by chance on the web. Over the last several years , I've found myself having to get the "real news" from either the web , the BBC and sometimes even the Spanish channels."None" of this is being broadcast in San Diego. This Diebold operative (Seiler) , is obviously just another right-wing fascist pig , and wouldn't you know it , is quietly installed as our Registar of Voters , of all things. Common reasoning would dictate that it would be logical to assume that when she presses issues that benefit Diebold and the right-wing (one in the same) means she is either , on-the-take or an extremist (nothing else fills in the blanks). Either way , she is unfit for this post. I guess it figures in this area where they do things like replace the disgraced Duke Cunningham with another corrupt right-wing carpetbagging lobbyist. This , Peoples Republic of San Diego (as it is labeled --unknown to us) is just a snapshot of whats wrong across America. Their perceptions are warped by , you name it. Theres nobody pointing out how far they've drifted away from the ideals of our nation. Theres nobody to show them the way and at this point , I'm not too sure it can be fixed. Sad !!!

Guess its time to move , its embarrassing having to admit I'm from San Diego and I don't like having to live around these sick people.

Thanx for the greeting and many thanx for your efforts to expose the wrongs of our time (it is badly needed). Yours , and a host of other web blogs are all thats keeping Democracy alive at this time in history. I also found an interesting website that keeps track of the Bush/Cheney escapades , in detail from day one. I had hoped someone was doing this. Check Thousandreasons.org

I see the Sibel Edmonds story is fading to the back pages. I had hoped that 'someone' had taken her up on her brave offer --- Olberman or Anderson Copper come to mind (the only mainstream journalists I have any respect for) --- somebody , anybody.

I know how you feel. Don't move, (There's nowhere to run anymore--fascism is coming everywhere) stand and fight back, stand up for your rights.

The media seems poised to only get worse, I know having to resort to searching the web for real news is a pain, but it's also the reality, that's why net neutrality is so important, it's why public access (PEG) programming is important.

Lastly, Don't forget Amy Goodman at democracynow.org

I originally came to the Bradblog to avoid the apathy of DemocraticUnderground. I have learned a lot since then, I also learned about what I'll term "the cyberwarfare operatives" on DU.

So far, I haven't been perfectly happy with Debra Bowen, but I also am still willing to give her a chance to clean these elections up. On some things she has done an excellent job. She is a leader for realizing there are big problems with these electronic voting machines. And for the first time in history doing something about it. The San Diego ROV just doesn't want to count our ballots, and is attempting to nullify the directives she was given. I think this whole thing could be solved by giving that ROV either more time, and resources to do the count. And this whole thing is pure crap because of San Diego ROV's incapacity to communicate.

I also find it interesting the name Diebold is used, when there is no Diebold anymore. Which brings us into a whole slew of other questions like if DieBold was uncertified, then does that make Premier Uncertified as well..As Brad so well puts it Same Shitty company, great new name!

I hope the judge uses common sense and get's these two talking and dealing with the problems.

The TOP TO BOTTOM REVIEW is the first in history. There is no precedent.

The San Diego ROV doesn't care if these boxes are un- validatable, insecure, and inaccurate. The only thing she's doing is what I like to call "PERCEIVED DILIGENCE" her real agenda is "win at all costs."

Wait. We can sue if we think doing our job is too much work? Great! I'm getting tired of doing my job to the best of my ability. Just as, I'm sure, those election officials are sick and tired of doing their job of ensuring Democracy works as it should. It's hard counting votes. Hell, Its hard counting. And touching paper all day dries out your hands! So paper ballots should also be considered an occupational health and safety issue.

This is pathetic. I say just fire every one of these lazy buggers. If they won't do their damn job properly then fire their asses and find someone who will take democracy seriously.

San Diego County Registraar of Voters:
1-858-565-5800
toll free:
1-800-696-0136

The person that answered said that they didn't know anything about it, and transferred me to the registraar's secretary, which went to a message (it is lunchtime right now, however) This has got to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. Boo-hoo, we have to work too hard... Boo-hoo... Who cares if the results of the election are accurate or not... We don't want to have to work too hard...

And yet they have time to make such a long complaint? Those f*ckheads.

The entities to really go after now aren't just Seiler and Vu, but Walt Eckard, the bum who's the County Clerk here in San Diego that hired them as well as bums like Mikel Haas before them. And of course he was hired by the all Republican San Diego Board of Supervisors for the last ten or so years. We had a shot at getting a Democrat voted onto the board in 2006, but through voter pamphlet games, etc. they put back Ron Roberts on the board instead.

I think the nucleus of this problem rests within this board and those that they are hiring (and who those entities hire).

The man who gave Seiler and Vu the two top jobs at the registrar’s office is not talking. He is Chief Administrative Officer Walt Eckard. Back in May, he told a crowd of protesters opposing the hires he understood there was disagreement over his decision. He went on to say, “I have heard you. I have listened to you. I disagree with you and that’s it.”